Protective hoods or capsules for bottle tops



Nov. 21, 1961 o. J. BRUUN 3,009,593

PROTECTIVE HOODS 0R CAPSULES FOR BOTTLE TOPS Filed Sept. 9, 1959 UnitedStates Patent Ofiice 3,009,593 Patented Nov. 21, 1961 3,009,593PROTECTIVE HOODS R CAPSULES FOR BOTTLE TOPS Otto Johannes Bruun, TheWhite House, Stoke Park, England Filed Sept. 9, 1959, Ser. No. 839,022Claims priority, application Great Britain Nov. 27, 1958 1 Claim. (Cl.215-38) 7 This invention relates to bottle capsules of the kindconsisting of a conical hood of thin pliable foil, for instancealuminium foil, comprising a skirt and a top part, and designed to coverthe top of a bottle neck, and closure proper for protection, decorationand security against pilfering.

The invention has for its object the provision of an improved bottlecapsule of this kind, and consists broadly of a cup shaped conicalbottle capsule consisting of a laminate of metal foil and paperconvoluted with its overlapping edge portions glued together to form anintegral truncated conical sleeve with the paper inside and the metalfoil outside, the walls at the smaller end of said sleeve being foldedover inwardly in overlapping flaps which are pressed and sealed togetherto form the closed end of the capsule.

In order that the invention may be the more clearly understood, acapsule in accordance therewith and the process of making the same willnow be described, reference being made to the accompanying drawings,wherein:

FIGURE 1 is a face view of a blank from which the capsule is to beformed;

FIGURE 2 is an elevation illustrating an intermediate stage in theformation of the capsule;

FIGURE 3 is an elevation of the finished capsule;

FIGURE 4 is a plan of the top of the same;

FIGURE 5 is a large scale cross section of one example of the materialconstituting the original blank;

FIGURE 6 is a similar view of another example of such material;

FIGURE 7 is a similar view of still another example of such material;

FIGURE 8 is a similar view of the same material as FIGURE 5 but formedwith a close pattern of special relief embossments;

FIGURE 9 is an elevation showing the capsule applied to a corked bottle;

FIGURE 10 is an elevation showing the capsule applied to a bottle closedwith a crown cork.

Referring to the drawings, the material of which the capsule is formedis thin metal foil 1 (FIGURES 5, 6, 7 and 8), preferably aluminium foil,in thickness between 0.007 mm. and 0.018 mm., laminated to a sheet ofpaper 2 by means of an adhesive 3 which may be a heat sealing materialsuch as a wax compound. There may also be a layer of dry adhesive 4coated on the exposed surface of the paper 2 as shown in FIGURE 6,and/or, there may be a layer of heat sealing lacquer 5 coated on theexposed surface of the foil 1 as shown in FIGURE 7.

To form the capsule, a pre-cut blank (FIGURE 1) of this laminatedmaterial is first convoluted into a sleeve 6 around a mandrel 7 oftruncated conical form, with the paper inside and the metal foiloutside. The edge portions of said sleeve overlap at 8 and a part of thewrapped material is left protruding beyond the smaller top 9 of theconical mandrel, as shown in FIGURE 2. The overlapping edge portions 8are sealed together by means of an adhesive. This can be a separateadhesive applied to one edge portion of the blank in the capsule formingmachine, and it may be of the heat sealing type. Alternatively theadhesive 3 (if a heat sealing compound) by which the paper 2 and foil 1are laminated together, may be utilised for sealing said overlappingmarginal portions together if heat is applied in the process ofconvoluting. This requires that the paper 2 shall be sufl'icientlyporous to enable the melted compound to penetrate it.

The portion of the laminated sleeve which extends beyond the top of themandrel 7 is folded in fiat overlapping sections over the top 9 of themandrel and compressed against this to form the top part of the capsule.These overlapping sections are shown in FIGURE 4.

By providing the layer 4 of dry adhesive, it is attained that thecapsule may be made to adhere to the bottle neck. This adhesive ispreferably of the type which is rendered active by moisture.

The top and bottom edges of the blank (FIGURE 1) are curved. This is tocompensate for the conicity of the mandrel and ensure that the bottomedge of the finished capsule shall be straight.

By making the capsule of metal foil laminated to paper, the removal ofthe residues of the capsules from returned bottles is very muchfacilitated, compared with capsules made of plain metal foil because therinsing water will rapidly penetrate the paper from the exposed edgesthereof and loosen the said capsule residues.

Thin aluminium foil laminated with paper possesses such springiness thatthe top part of the capsule formed by merely compressing the overlappingsections of the laminated material would be loose and unstable and thisagain would mean that the capsule top would not be sufiiciently stableand air tight to ensure that the cap sules could be removed and appliedone by one from a stack of the capsules, by blowing compressed airbetween the capsules as is effected in automatic capsuling machines,because the air would tend to open up the loosely compressed flaps andescape through the capsule top instead of removing the capsule from thestack. In the present construction this difficulty is overcome bysealing the overlapping top flaps together.

This is effected by applying heat and pressure. In

one case when the compound 3, which is employed in Under heat andpressure the compound will percolate the paper 2 and where, in pressingthe flaps together, two portions of the inside paper surface are pressedtogether, these surface portions will be sealed together.

In a further case which may be applied alone or in combination with theformer case the sealing ef ect may be obtained or enhanced by coatingthe outside of the metal foil of the laminated material with a layer ofheat-sealing lacquer 5 (as shown in FIGURE 7), as this will ensure thatwhere two portions of the outside metal foil surface are pressedtogether under heat, said surface portions will be sealed together.

A further feature of the invention is that the laminated material may beembossed with a special pattern of relief embossments as shown in FIGURE8. The embossments must be of a close irregular pattern to ensure thatwhen two capsules are nested into one another the embossed surface ofone capsule will abut against the relief tops on the surface of the nextcapsule whereby it is attained that the size of the interspace betweenthe two capsules is governed by the depth of the embossments and will beat the rate of twice this depth.

To ensure a suflicient interspace between the nested capsules, the depthof the embossment should be at the rate of from 0.1 mm. to 0.2 mm. whichprovides an interspace between the capsules of from 0.2 mm. to 0.4 mm.

separate them one by one, and provides sufficient longitudinal distancebetween the capsules in the nested stack to be able to hold the secondcapsule in the stack while the outermost capsule is blown off. The crosssection shape of the relief embossment should be of a rounded shape tofacilitate the two embossed surfaces to slide along each other with aslittle friction as possible.

A further object of the relief embossing of the foil material is toassist the Water to penetrate between the capsule residues and the glassin removing the residues from the returned bottles in rinsing machines.

In order to ensure a perfect automatic separation of the nested capsulesone by one the taper of the capsule skirt should be not less than 2 /2".

I claim:

A cup shaped conical bottle capsule consisting of a laminate of metalfoil and porous paper, with an adhesive in between and a heat sealingcoating on the surface of the foil, said laminate being convoluted withits overlapping edge portions glued together to form a conical sleevewith the paper inside and the toil outside, the Walls at the smaller endof the sleeve being folded over inwardly in corrugations pressedtogether as overlapping flaps to form the closed end of the capsule, andsaid flaps being sealed together under the application of heat andpressure, by the percolation of the aforesaid adhesive through the paperwhere paper engages paper, and by said heat sealing coating where metalengages metal.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS2,151,508 Glensky Mar. 21, 1939 20 2,430,459 Farrell et al. Nov. 11,1947 FOREIGN PATENTS 83,504 Netherlands Dec. 15, 1956 296,976Switzerland Mar. 15, 1954 25 755,592 Great Britain Aug. 22, 1956 855,917France May 23, 1940

